1. Field of the Invention
The present invention describes a system which permits an instructor to teach one or more students at a site remote from the instructor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instruction of students located in the same physical classroom as the instructor is an effective method of teaching because it allows a student to ask questions to both the instructor and the rest of her classmates. The instructor can give an immediate answer to the students, and can spontaneously ask additional questions of the students as the lecture progresses. In short, the instructor and the students can easily interact with each other concerning the topic of the lecture.
However, it is often necessary or desirable to teach students who for some reason are not able to meet in the same physical classroom. For example, students or instructors located at disparate physical locations may not be able to meet in one location or the number of students may be so large as to preclude fitting comfortably into one classroom. In these situations, distant or remote learning systems can advantageously be employed.
One approach to teaching students at remote sites, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,472, involves connecting a teaching station with a plurality of student stations over telephone lines. Both the teacher and the students have a prerecorded instructional tape and a video player to play the tape on. In operation, the instructor lectures, sends data to a computer, and controls on/off synchronization of the video players with commands sent over the telephone lines. In this manner, the instructor is able to lecture and periodically visually illustrate the lecture by showing the same section of multiple, identical video tapes to all of the students. This approach to remote learning has significant limitations caused by a need for (1) a constant telephone connection to the teaching site; (2) video segments for each session; and (3) a prepared video tape that must be distributed to each student before the lesson begins. Each of these requirements' for a conventional remote learning system has associated costs, the most significant of which may be the telephone connection that must be connected for the complete lesson.
Another conventional approach to remote learning is to use personal computers outfitted with a modem such that all communication is over public telephone lines. This approach is initially advantageous because the setup cost is low; once in use, however, the phone connect time charges can be prohibitively expensive.
Additionally, it is presently difficult to send video signals with the limited bandwidth available with today's telephone lines and modems. Further, proposals to use wide bandwidth telephone lines for such video transmission will increase further the costs required to use such proposed systems.